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Trending Henry Louis Gates Quotes

The sad truth is that the civil rights movement cannot be reborn until we identify the causes of black suffering, some of them self-inflicted. Why can't black leaders organize rallies around responsible sexuality, birth within marriage, parents reading to their children and students staying in school and doing homework?

Henry Louis Gates

Patriotism is best exemplified through auto-critique.

Henry Louis Gates

So when you do your family tree and Margaret Cho does hers, and... Wanda Sykes and John Legend... we're adding to the database that scholars can then draw from to generalize about the complexity of the American experience. And that's the contribution that family trees make to broader scholarship.

Henry Louis Gates

Censorship is to art as lynching is to justice.

Henry Louis Gates

We can revolutionize the attitude of inner city brown and black kids to learning. We need a civil rights movement within the African-American community.

Henry Louis Gates

The historical basis for the gap between the black middle class and underclass shows that ending discrimination, by itself, would not eradicate black poverty and dysfunction. We also need intervention to promulgate a middle-class ethic of success among the poor, while expanding opportunities for economic betterment.

Henry Louis Gates

The historical basis for the gap between the black middle class and underclass shows that ending discrimination, by itself, would not eradicate black poverty and dysfunction. We also need intervention to promulgate a middle-class ethic of success among the poor, while expanding opportunities for economic betterment.

Henry Louis Gates

My father lived to be 97 and played bridge every day up to the end, so I've got a 50 percent chance of living a long life like him.

Henry Louis Gates